The invention relates generally to hydraulically fed food cutting (“hydro-cutting”) apparatuses, and more particularly to a rotating blade assembly used in a hydro-cutting apparatus to cut food products into a plurality of smaller pieces.
Many food products, particularly vegetables and fruits, are processed prior to sale to preserve the food so it is safe and appealing at the time of consumption. The processing can be either by canning or freezing, among others. Most food products must be sliced or otherwise shaped into an edible size prior to the preservation process unless it is an edible size before processing. Slicing and shaping operations traditionally have been accomplished with sharpened blades. Such blades can be hand-held, but hand-held knives are relatively slow and dangerous to the person using them. Other blades are machine-driven, or use machines to drive the food product into a stationary or machine-driven blade. Food cutting machines increase the speed and consistency of slicing, and provide a higher degree of safety in the food slicing industry.
Recent advances in food product cutting technologies have resulted in the hydraulically fed cutting apparatus, which is referred to by the shorthand term “hydro-cutting”. Hydro-cutting involves the propulsion of water and food products, typically at very high speed, through a path that includes a stationary cutting blade. Production cutting systems and related knife fixtures are generally well known in the art of hydro-cutting vegetable products. Typical hydro-cutting systems have a so-called knife fixture that is mounted at a position along the path of the food product to slice parallel to the flow of water. Such parallel cutters usually cut or slice into strips or into a helical shape. In such a system, the food products are conveyed one-at-a-time in single file succession into the stationary cutting blades with enough kinetic energy to carry the product through the stationary knife fixture.
One disadvantage in the food products resulting from conventional hydro-cutting has been the shape of the food products after cutting. The standard “French fry” typifies the parallel cutting systems, because the resulting food products have a familiar elongated shape with a square cross-section. There is a need for a cutting apparatus that provides superior shapes, whether the superiority arises from the subsequent processing or the shape for aesthetic purposes, or both.